I can’t help but feel that this is not your best work. I have no idea whether it’s true or not, but Dave’s personality is irrelevant to the argument, which is about online communities and cyber-bullying.
Unless, perhaps, you are trying to demonstrate how it works? Have I failed to catch the subtle way you demonstrate that if someone is disliked for something, no matter what they say and how important it is, people will focus on why they dislike that person?
In Critical Theory discussions, it's called "derailing", and once you have a name for it, it becomes even more frustrating.
Notice how now, we're not discussing the original ideas of the post, but are completely pushed into a tangential discussion.
At least HN has threaded discussions. When it happens in flat discussions like Facebook, it's an order of magnitude more annoying.
Short version: yes it's unfair, but yes, in this case, I'm unable to separate the message from the messenger.
It’s not easy for me to walk my talk, so I am loathe to criticize you for being just like me.
Dave's gone ahead and written a stand-out post that reflects upon bullying in general, and in tech in particular.
Why not take the reasonable viewpoint that whilst we might not agree with everything RMS does or says, he deserves enormous respect for dedicating his life to a quest that has benefited most of us in one way or another.
Back on October 4th, 2006, I wrote up a fairly thorough overview of the controversy surrounding RSS: "RSS has been damage by in-fighting among those who have developed it". I documented in detail the extent to which David Winer interfered with other people's work, while claiming credit for that work. Please read this if you do not know much about the history of this conflict:
http://www.teamlalala.com/blog/2006/10/24/rss-has-been-damag...
It gets dull.
On the contrary, it neatly illustrates what the OP is talking about.
You'd never guess.
I met Dave a few times back when I was with the tImes though I doubt he remembers me. He's nice enough in person but he has his own personal reality distortion field.
I had to stop following him in Google Reader and Twitter to stay sane.
November 2010: http://scripting.com/stories/2010/11/11/didYouInventRss.html January 2007: http://scripting.com/scripting2/davewiner/2007/01/02/rssWasn...
Here’s one characterization by someone else that he seems to approve of:
“[RSS] grew out of a good idea in 1997 from the software company Userland that got picked up and melded with one of Netscape's similar ideas.”
http://scripting.com/2003/04/14.html#lff229a9a0dde77eb6e47c1...
While you might still think that Dan Libby deserves more credit than Winer, this is a far cry from claiming that he invented RSS.
FYI, when you invoke "truth universally acknowledged", people familiar with that phrase's origin will expect it to be followed by a bad assumption. See http://www.paulgraham.com/iflisp.html